


Consilior

by romanticalgirl



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you want, little one?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consilior

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/)**inlovewithnight** on the occasion of her terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
> 
> Originally posted 2-5-07

Lancelot knows why he’s here, though he’s loathe to admit it. He can’t help but know as he watches the shadow – even larger than the man – in the candle’s light. Even more than Lancelot, though in very different ways, Dagonet is Arthur’s man.

The Romans laugh, assume him a dumb soldier, but Dagonet is nothing of the kind. He’s quiet and keeps his own counsel, but he sees more and knows more than the Roman dogs would ever give him credit for. Lancelot admires it in him, knows the advantages to keeping the enemy off balance, though he’s never quite mastered the part of it that requires him to keep his mouth shut.

Lancelot has a bed to go to, his own or Arthur’s if he wishes, but he’s here instead, coiling up like a snake at the foot of Dagonet’s bed. Dagonet looks at him, exasperation writ large on his face if one knows how to look for it. Lancelot has made a lifetime of putting it there, so he knows the signs as well as Tristan knows the bent branch that means fifty Woads have passed along an invisible trail.

“What do you want, whelp?”

Lancelot’s not sure what he’s doing, or what he’s doing here. It seems incongruous to be here, in just breeches and a shift, watching Dagonet as he prepares for bed. But there’s something beyond sense tonight, as the waning moon dies softly in the night sky. He knows little of Dagonet’s history, as Dagonet was conscripted before any of the rest of them, brought and bought like so much slave trade from Sarmatia. No family, no tribe, and yet still as fierce and loyal to the long grasses that are home.

He shakes his head in delayed answer to Dagonet’s question, content to sit there as he is. Dagonet shivers as he slaps a cold, wet cloth over his skin, rubbing at blood and mud and sweat, washing it away as well as he can. There is always something unclean about them, he will give the Romans that, but it is solid and earned and none of them are anything but proud of it. A few of them – Galahad, he thinks – are willing to brave the baths the Romans provide them, but Lancelot watches them with dubious eyes, not trusting the Roman horde not to descend upon him and drown him in a pool of his own watery blood.

Dagonet turns and looks at him, brow furrowing. “Arthur?”

“What?” Lancelot shakes his head, startled by Dagonet’s assumption. “No. Not Arthur.”

He raises and eyebrow and crosses his arms, and Lancelot is struck by how large the man is, how daunting. “Then why?”

He doesn’t know the answer himself and his brow furrows more. “It’s late,” he finally says. “And dark.”

“It is late and dark every night.” Dagonet reaches for the flagon of wine he’d brought with him and empties it of a portion of its contents. “Why is this so different?”

“Arthur is praying.”

That earns him a laugh, the slightest curve of mouth and a huff of breath. “And why is that so different, little man?”

Lancelot shifts and leans against the wall, watching Dagonet’s knowing eyes. “He needs his faith. And he needs me, and he cannot reconcile the two. You know Arthur better than anyone else. What would it do, do you think, for me to…”

Dagonet’s eyes narrow and he sets the flagon down and moves over, menacing in his approach. “To what?”

“Am I just a prison he’s taken on in sympathy for our conscription? Something wrong and inescapable so he can know what we suffer?” He looks away, unwilling to see what Dagonet’s eyes might tell him. “If I were to…go. He could have peace.”

“And since when do you wish _any_ Roman peace, even one you like? You’re destruction and chaos, Lancelot, raining down on friend and enemy alike. Were you to…go…” He shakes his head. “You say he cannot reconcile the two – his soul for God and his body for you – I say that is not true. He has reconciled them. And that is what tortures him.”

“Is that to be reassuring then?”

“Your mere existence has caused grief to more than one Roman, and now you’ve assured grief to one the rest of your days. How is that not reassuring?” Dagonet sits beside him on the cot and leans back, his body as relaxed as the innate wariness allows. “Besides, Arthur enjoys suffering.”

Lancelot laughs and turns his head, looking at Dagonet. “That is very true.”

Dagonet shakes his head, his smile more of a smirk as he holds Lancelot’s gaze. “The rest of us, on the other hand, would be more than glad to see the back of you.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

Dagonet reaches out and ruffles Lancelot’s dark curls with his paw of a hand, then lets it slide down to gently cup his chin. “He would not be alone in his mourning, little one. If it matters.”

Lancelot nods as well as he can in Dagonet’s grip and then lets the larger knight tug him close, hold him against him, brother to brother. “It matters more,” Lancelot assures him later, in the dark, when Dagonet has given into sleep, “than his mourning ever could.”  



End file.
